Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Palestinian statehood means the eradication of Israel

On 29th November 1947 the United Nations voted in favour of establishing a Jewish state called Israel. Exactly 65 years later, on 29th November 2012, there is to be a further attempt at the UN to vote into existence an Arab state called Palestine.

Let us not be mistaken on the significance of this: the state of Palestine will not be content to perch in peace upon the rolling hills of Judaea and Samaria - it will aggravate and agitate to extend its borders to incorporate Jerusaelem's Old City, including many sites sacred to both Christians and Jews. While the rest of the world recognises Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel, Palestine will eventually declare Jerusalem as its own capital.

If this point is not ceded, Hamas in Gaza will continue to rain down missiles upon Israeli towns and villages, indiscriminately annihilating random civilians. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has said that the Palestinian state must be along the pre-1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital, and that all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, and 'from the north to the south' belongs to them.

That doesn't sound much like a two-state solution: indeed, the land from the Med to Jordan, and from Egypt to Syria, is currently known as Israel. The Hamas vision for Palestine is predicated upon the non-existence of Israel.

No doubt when Mahmoud Abbas makes his appeal at the UN to recognise a Palestinian state, he will be lauded and applauded. But let us not fool ourselves that this is any kind of peace plan. He wants East Jerusalem as the official capital, and that strikes directly at the heart of Israel's identity and Jewish destiny.

If, on 29th November 2012, the global elite decide to speak into existence the State of Palestine, it will be a step toward the erasure of Israel's sovereignty: that the threat to Israel is then existential we should be in no doubt.

120 Comments:

There is no such thing as rational in this matter. It takes two in a dispute to reach a rational agreement. They must be agreeable to reason, act lucidly and sensibly, displaying a lasting sound judgment in the matter agreed RATIONALLY!!

There is only one here but is being duped into accepting its own inevitable destruction and worse.

Fools are those who believe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad also the PA would be happy with a 1967 bordered Israel.Open your eyes they will only be content with Israels complete destruction to believe otherwise shows you to be naive fools

Given that a lot of Israeilis are perfectly prepared to accept a peaceful Palestininan stae, I think you are wrong.Do note the qualifier, though, & Benny Nett isn't helping, Israel's cause, either ......

I hardly think a state of Palestine means the eradication of Israel. But it might mean the Jews giving up some land they are not entitled to under international law.

Both sides have acted as terrorists, both sides can be rather nasty, but the only real solution is a two-state solution, which is what most of the world supports. That might mean lasting peace with just a few epithets on occasions.

My query is, do we think Palestine would exist today had the Arab coalition been successful against Israel or do we think the land would have been partitioned between the different conquerors.

On a similar line of thought. Had the Arab armies managed to achieve this or push Israel's border back do you think they would be up for negotiating a two state solution and the existence of a viable and independent Israeli state. Somehow I doubt it.

The Jewish homeland was named Palestine by the Roman Empire's brutal occupational force out of spite.

Unfortunately there were no Guardian readers to protest about that occupation two thousand years ago and the Temple was raised to the ground, with the Jewish people deliberately dispersed around the world by the Romans.

The Islamic world could acept the right of Israel to exist and the people in the camps in Gaza could disperse among the Arab and Muslim world just like so many other millions of displaced people including MANY Jews were compelled to do during the many and various land grabs, pogroms, civil wars and people movements of the 20th century.

Unhappily, Muhammad doesn't do rational. So it will escalate into Armaggedon as it is written. Check Hal Lindsey's YouTube videos.

OK, I was thinking more along the lines of the world plus 10%, but, as you are one of my fav goys, let's meet half way and go for "the world" plus the moon and 3% . possibly Mars & additional stock warrants at 2%.

I got a feel for why the Palestinians hate the Jews so much was because the Swiss Zionist Jews decided one day they wanted some land and chose Palestine. They just took the land. So this war has been going on 115 years since at least 1898. I must say I'd be pretty pissed off if someone came along and flung me out of my home.

The best solution would be to split the land. To the North of Jerusalem would be Israel for the Jews and Zionist Jews, but it would have to be renamed to start afresh. A small strip in the middle from east to west to include Jerusalem and Bethlehem should be for western Christians. They could be peace keepers and neutral. To reach each side one would have to travel through this Christian neutral land. Then to the South a newly created state also with new name for the Palestinian Arabs. If peace is to be maintained people have really got to break down the barriers of guilt through criticism to see the things as they they are.

Any city can be made a capital as long as it has a certain amount of residents. Jesus being born in Bethlehem but was cast out by the Jews qualifies Christians to occupy a strip in-between the North and South. There is plenty of room for all, the Jews in the North and for them to have Tel Aviv still as the capital. The South would still have Gaza still.

For peace keeping purposes for a certain period of time say 100 years or so until Jews and Arabs can live peaceably alongside each other. To stop each of you flinging bombs at each other and digging tunnels to get at each other. It might take a long time.

None of us owns anything really we are only keepers until we die and the next generation takes over. You can't take anything with you.

"For peace keeping purposes for a certain period of time say 100 years or so until Jews and Arabs can live peaceably alongside each other. To stop each of you flinging bombs at each other and digging tunnels to get at each other. It might take a long time".

Sounds like Ulster though. Britain leads the example. Perhaps we should have Jewish peacekeepers in Northern Ireland?

"Jesus being born in Bethlehem but was cast out by the Jews qualifies Christians to occupy a strip in-between the North and South."

Um, the Jews didn't cast anyone out; Jesus of Nazareth by executed on the orders of a Roman gov called Pilate.

Have any of you read the Bible? Do you know about the promise of the land by God to Abraham? It was to Abraham's legitimate descendants, the Jews, that the land was given for all eternity. Check it out in Genesis.

You never read the Bible geez? According to the Word Israel will never again be uprooted or cease to exist. The Jews must still go through the time of jacobs trouble for their rejection of Yeshua but they will be brought through it and will call upon His name. Jesus/Yeshua Himself is comig back to reign from jerusalem.

It is said that there is pagan roots to anti-semetism. That one envies the Jew for their covenant with God. At the same time Christianity did not Judaize until recently. When one takes a reactionary postition for a tradition buried under three generations of 'postmodernism': an actual sociological phenomenon apart from an intellectuals framework. Now that the State of Israel and the Jew is equal to Christ and his Church. The common understanding that --we as Christians are Israel-- has withered in popular sentiment. This may come as an American invention mainly. Anyhow, does not a sovereign nation deserve its autonomy? Either way?

The UN would be better spending their time finding Islamic countries to take the refugees so the camps can be closed down and burnt. Of course, that isn’t going to happen. The last thing Islamic dictatorships need are large numbers of seasoned terrorists living cheek by jowl with them. Instead of firing on Jews, they could easily start firing on their hosts, when their ‘demands’ are not met. It’s always demands, isn’t it. Whether you are a semi deranged Arab who’s lost his home in war, or disordered male homosexual, there’ll be a demand coming from them. And when that one is met, another demand.

Islam, that constricted way of life spread under pain of death has suffered a few set backs in the past. Thrown out of Europe east and west, yet these blighters can’t seem to accept it’s all over for them in Palestine. Well bloody well tough. Other peoples have lost their countries in conflicts, and fairly recently at that. At least they had the sense to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and come to terms that things will never be the same again. What’s so special about these desert bastards ?

So, with the extent of the Inspector’s sympathy made known, they can either rot in their camps ad infinitum or escape and start again somewhere else if they are lucky enough to find a country that will take them, and that does NOT include the UK. We’ve enough blasted so called asylum seekers living off us as it is, and the last thing we need is a tribe of suicide bombers living here…

It seem largely due to todays State of Israel that some officially, and most broadly see this mid-eastern affair as epiphany; if not the book of Revelation unfolding. Based on this is the inspiration to support Israel -- in a religious manner. I do not think Protestantism should be N/noahide sabbabos goys.

How did it end: Gunfight and children executed where they stood. A lot of children executed where they stood.

It’s not Johnny Islam at his best or his worst. It’s just Johnny Islam. It doesn’t matter where in the world he hails from, he is consistent. The next time you are selling Israel out, remember who the beneficiaries are going to be, and ask yourself “Do I want to soil myself by associating with these disgustingly cruel people...”

Dr D. and Tommy, whose comments are remarkably similar; actually as we see from Romans 10-11 and Galatians 3, the heirs to God's promises now are the church and Christians who have been grafted into Israel. The current Israel is not the same as the ancient state which was finally destroyed in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple and the fulfilment of Christ's prophecy to that effect.

This is without prejudice to the fact that Israel largely has right on its side in this conflict.

Hannah of the pleasingly assonant name; I think your percentage could be a bit high if Luke was a gentile, although it could also be a bit low if he was a Jew and the author to the Hebrews was too (who some speculate may have been Luke too!). But your point ultimately stands I think; Christianity is a continuation from Judaism.

The 'palestinians' only came into existence when the State of Israel was rebirthed into existence.Prior to that Palestine was a desert wilderness sparsly populated by Jews and a few Arabs.

Mark Twain's visit to Lebanon, Syria, and the Holy Land in 1867 was published in "The Innocents Abroad", where he described Palestine as follows:

"..... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route.... hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." (The Innocents Abroad, p. 361-362)

But since 1948 and the immediate attacks by surrounding arab Nations Israel particularly Jerusalem has become the most contested strip of land in the World.

Israel has done all possible to live at peace with its[hostile] neighbours even conceding land which was used as a a forward position to fire rockets into Israel( supplied by Iran who has expressed the desire to totally destroy Israel)

The desire by some to divide Jerusalem seen by many to be' a solution' to the 'Palestinian problem' will be the precursor to events never seen before in History.

Galant @ 19:35 asks: "In your opinion, when pondering plans for the future of this situation, what is (are) the greatest danger(s) both presently, and in the future, to which we should give full consideration?"

I would say Office of Inspector General has answered that quite well in the comment above yours!

Good question, firstly strip the idea away that any of the stuff we see today, has to come to pass, because holy books say it has to be so, if holy texts add up to warmongering, then something is wanting in that faith

All religions can claim to be true but that is not a right to cause carnage on a Grand Scale

Then look at the Egyptians, who seem be waking up to the fact the Muslim Brotherhood are just an IMF controlled scrounging fraud

Then consider the up and coming 100yr anniverssary of the Great War, asking what can we do about the bankers and wars

Watch Bankers, Bradburys And The Carnage On The Western FrontWith Justin Walker

Span - as far as I can tell OotIG is in agreement with Cranmer, I wanted to hear from those not.

Bred - I'm not sure what you mean from your answer. I think maybe I didn't clarify it enough. I am asking with regards to the present and future of Israel/Palestine specifically. Please could you answer the question again?

No nation readily allows its borders to collapse into a foreign, and overwhelmingly hostile power.

If the UN does rule in favour of a Palestinian State, Israel will go it alone - as we in the UK have gone it alone before, and would do if we were in the same position.

If the French were firing mortars into London on a daily basis, we wouldn't sit back and say - hey have Kent if you promise to stop. We would begrudge every inch of land, and respond to every assault.

The UN vote will do one thing and one thing only if it goes in favour of Palestine - it will tell Israel it cannot rely on the international community, and that it cannot, in all probability, rely on Britain. Europe has been a lost cause for a long time, and the EU is no different. It won't back down, because Israel perceives, not without justification, that to back down is to genuinely invite oblivion.

So yay, the Guardian will rant on about a rogue state - though it's not many that have a democratic constitution and freedom of religion and the press.

Oh dear, this is another topic upon which people tend to "pick a side" and hurl obscenities over the barricade.

Which isn't to say that what I will write will be much better, but I hope I can at least do some good.

It's perfectly true that after the Roman ethnic cleansing of Israel circa 70 AD the majority of Jews fled into diaspora. But it's not true to say that the region has had a perfectly stable population or a permanent authority or an expression of unique statehood since then.

It was a territory of the Ottomans well into modern times, being ceded to the British to sort out at the wrapping up of the Ottoman empire in the aftermath of WWI.

By this time, there was already a nascent Zionist movement, and, as well as a small population of Jews who had moved back in the intervening 18 centuries, there were the new shoots (like Kibbutzim) of regularly arriving Jewish Migrants. Remember, this is all in the context of a very unstable European world order, with the flaring up of violent anti-Semitism in almost every European country,(the UK, narrowly escaping Cable Street, preserved most of its dignity)of which the Russian pogroms, kristallnacht and the Nuremburg laws are merely the best remembered.

Is it any wonder that Jews wanted out? The US wouldn't have them in great numbers. Britain had quotas. Nowhere else was perfectly safe, and there was already the natural and deep longing both for a homeland and for their ancestral homeland.

There were Arabs living there, but migrants at the end of the nineteenth century reported that they had no or little nationalist awareness - they were not a distinct people but Arabs tossed this way and that by other Arabs.

In fact, there was some Arab immigration into Palestine during this period, in the wake of the stimulation of the economy of the area made by the Jews. The situation is a complex one.

And then the Ottomans lose and Britain gets Palestine. The population of "Palestine" is already 10% Jewish by now, and from 1922 onwards persecution is only getting worse in Europe. It's no shock at all in this context that the Balfour declaration announces the British intention to form a homeland for the Jews. Neither is it a shock that, the Jordanians under the Hashemite dynasty having fought with the Entente powers, Britain secured them Jordan as quite separate from the rest of the Mandate, nor that Britain did not believe that Palestinians could all just go and live there ("they're all arabs!" - although it was hoped that Jordan would assist in Arab resettlement if absolutely necessary) provision had to be made both for existing residents, Arab and Jew alike, and for the Jewish people.

After the mass immigration of Jews to the region that occurs in the years up to 1929, we begin to see an organised Palestinian resistance to the Jewish community - too much, too fast. And yet Germany's getting worse and worse! In 1936, we get the Peel Commission and the principle of partition - which the Jews accept and the Arabs reject. The Arabs still believe in a one-state solution. Their state. Certainly no further Jewish migrants, and questionmarks over the ones there already. If you look at the borders the Peel commission proposed, by the way, they are a tiny fraction of modern Israel/Palestine. But they do include Jerusalem, and any division of the land was too much for the Arabs by now.

Which brings us to the '48 war. Remember - Arab nations were the aggressors, and the vast majority of Palestinians who were "expelled" from what is now Israeli territory voluntarily left at the outbreak of hostilities, being urged to go to their fellow Arab nations to organise for the fight and return upon the shoulders of conquerors (There were exceptions. The Palestinians of Lydda and Ramle were forcibly and shamefully expelled)

The Arab parties lost, the Palestinians could not return to what was now occupied Israeli territory ("why should we give them back land we won in a defensive war?!") and they quickly found that their Arab brothers still thought of them as mere pawns, and not valid immigrants, come at their behest, who were owed a livelihood.

Egypt took the Gaza strip and Jordan the West Bank. And then came the six day war (another line in which Israel defended and Arab nations were the aggressors) and Israel took the Gaza strip and West Bank too.

Now the Gaza strip has some limited independence and the West Ban is occupied.

So, first the founding lies and myths of the two movements.

It is not true, as some Israeli sympathisers will say, that Jordan was intended to be the "Home for the Arab people" - The British government never intended for the rest of the Palestinian Mandate to be all Israel, and always intended to also make a separate provision for the Palestinian people.

However, it is equally not true, as some Palestinian sympathisers will say, that the majority of Palestinians were expelled in the aftermath of the '48 war. They left - they left of their own accord.

What is true is that there were already Jews in the region prior to the creation of Israel. They found it relatively sparsely occupied, and quickly established heavy immigration, partly through Zionism though largely through a need to escape an increasingly hostile Europe. Palestinians would not accept the legitimacy of their presence, and there were riots and wars. The wars were started by Palestinians and sympathetic Arab states. A minority of Palestinians were dishonourably expelled from some parts of Israel during the '48 war. Others remained and make up a double digits minority of Israel's present population.

Those Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are subject to some pressures and hardships that are regrettable but inevitable in the present situation. Other hardships imposed by Israel are, I'm afraid, purely malicious and unnecessary. There are also the illegal settlements in the West Bank, some of which are close to '67 lines, but others, most obviously Ariel, which it would be hard to incorporate into any future State of Israel in a two state solution even through land swaps. Those Palestinians who are happy to accept the '67 lines with land swaps (and there really are Palestinians who accept the '67 lines with land swaps!) feel that in so doing they are making a large compromise. They are in some ways.

A two state solution is both possible and highly desirable.

The best outline for the means of achieving this I have seen recently is to be found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/is-peace-possible/

If you wish to be well-informed on this issue, and feel that though you have strong opinions you could do with knowing more, I implore you to take the time with that resource.

I think that the problem with this issue is that when people hear a view that they find objectionable, there is an immediate urge not to state the truth as they see it but to make the case from the opposite extreme, as if to "balance" the discussion. But that just polarises proceedings further and people end up believing their own partisan lines.

It IS true that there was Arab historically an Arab population living in present Israel/Palestine. It is also true that there was a sizeable Jewish minority, that the region was not densely populated, that it had no existent independent State, and that in International Law and especially under the pressing conditions of European persecution Jews fled there and had a right to flee there.

It IS true that Palestinians are being used as pawns by other Arab states completely hostile to Israel. It is also true that Palestinians are mostly pariahs amongst these Arab neighbours, used and dispatched with with little compassion.

It IS true that some Palestinians were expelled from Israel. It is also true that many weren't and that many left voluntarily.

It IS true that Israel is under threat and needs assurances that she can protect her borders. It is also true that many Palestinians have done nothing wrong themselves, and are restricted in their daily lives in a myriad of unpleasant ways simply for being Palestinian.

It IS true that radical elements in Palestine seek an Islamic one state solution. It is also true that the intention of many Jewish settlements in settling in the West Bank and Jerusalem is to achieve through slow appropriation what Palestinian extremists can only try to achieve through naked terroristic force.

We can keep our eyes on all of these things without creating moral equivalences. Yes, Israel is more often in the right. Yes, there ought to be a two-state solution. No, a number of objections to that don't stand up as well as they did. Yes, some do. Realism, rationality and justice are what are called for.

William Hague should not be cowed by the baying of Bibi’s Beasts on the benches behind him, not to say around the Cabinet table with him.

Now is the moment for a Palestinian Declaration of Independence. It must explicitly lay claim to the whole of the viable Palestinian State created on both sides of the Jordan in 1948. Furthermore, it must mirror the Constitution of Lebanon in guaranteeing the Presidency to a Christian even if it guarantees the Premiership to a Muslim (as would have happened electorally anyway), and it must mirror the Constitutions of Lebanon, of Iran, and of Palestine east of the Jordan, the present Hashemite Kingdom, as well as the Palestinian Authority, in guaranteeing parliamentary representation to Christians. It should mirror Syria is establishing Christian festivals as public holidays.

And it should place the new state – not only the Christians, but the State and everyone in it – under the protection of each and all of the remaining sacral monarchies, there being by definition no other kind, in Christendom. This would also be a wider appeal, an appeal to any and every country that regarded Christianity as fundamental to its identity. Does the American Republic so regard herself? Does the Russian Federation? Do the republics of Europe? Do the republics of Central America, South America and the Caribbean? Do the republics, and two kingdoms, of Africa? Does any other country? In each country’s case, how it responded to this Declaration would be its definitive answer to that question.

At the very least, this needs to appear over the names expressing the full authority of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Latin Patriarchate, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, the Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarchate, the Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate, the Maronite Patriarchal Exarchate, the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, the Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate, and the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate. That would have an immediate and a very dramatic impact.

If there cannot be a Palestinian State, contrary to the position of the last Republican President of the United States, then with whom and with what have the Israelis ever been negotiating? Those interlocutors do not seek recognition of a Muslim state; on the contrary, the Palestinian Authority already operates a Christian quota without parallel in Israel, though corresponding to similar arrangements in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

They do not even seek recognition of an Arab state. Ever since 1993, they have recognised Israel within her borders before 1967, and, although they ought also to claim the territory to the east that a Palestinian State would rapidly come to include, they seek nothing more than recognition of Palestine within the territory captured in that year, the home of everyone who lives there, and if anything an emerging or emerged Orthodox Jewish refuge from godless Zionism. The only problem is with recognising Israel as “a Jewish State”, condemning a fifth of the population, including the world's most ancient Christian communities, to the second class citizenship from which the Israeli Constitution theoretically protects them, however different the practice may be.

We are told that “Jordan is Palestine”. Indeed she is. Jordan as created at the end of the British Mandate. That is to say, including the West Bank. There has never been a state with its border at the Jordan, and the populations of the two Banks are one people. The answer to the question of why anyone ever designed a country so short of water as Jordan is, is that no one ever did. The Declaration of a Palestinian State on the West Bank would be the end of the Hashemite Kingdom, which is just as much a foreign imposition as the Zionist project, and which was imposed by the same colonial power, which therefore bears the same historic responsibility.

The pressure for incorporation into a Palestinian State would be irresistible. That, rather than the destruction of Israel, would be the great national aspiration. And then, following its rapid and its largely, if not entirely, bloodless achievement, that would be the great national triumph. The proposed revocation of citizenship from 1.8 million Jordanians with especially strong family ties across the River, in a country of only 6.5 million, indicates that the Hashemites and their entourage are fully aware of this. Let their fear be proved well-founded.

Meanwhile, Israel needs to move to very extensive devolution to the very local level, Jewish or Arab, religious or secular, Muslim or Christian, and so forth. She needs three parliamentary chambers, each about one third of the size of the present one, with one for the ultra-Orthodox, one for the Arabs, and one for everyone else, the ultra-Orthodox and the Arab being already identified in law because of their arrangements in relation to military service. All legislation would require the approval of all three chambers. Each chamber would elect a Co-President, all three of whom would have to approve all legislation and senior appointments, as well as performing ceremonial duties.

Each chamber would be guaranteed a Minister in each department and at least a quarter of Cabinet posts. Yiddish would be recognised as an official language, the quid pro quo for recognising all the many currently unrecognised villages in the Galilee and the Negev. The major festivals of Judaism, Islam and Christianity would all be public holidays, perhaps, in this post-Zionist dispensation, the only public holidays. The Arab chamber would include the head of each of the above-named Christian communities or his nominee, being an Israeli citizen.

The alliance necessary to pull this off would take an awful lot of effort. But two peoples facing nothing less than denaturalisation could very well be prepared to make that amount of effort. The other lot should have had more children, or bothered to move there from places like London and New York. But they did not.

One thing not dealt with in these posts is the fate of Jews, who had lived in the rest of the middle east and north africa for centuries and who were forced by the Arab countries- regardless of whether or not they were Zionists- but because they were Jewish, (at gunpoint) into planes carrying only hand luggage, to go to Israel and other places.

Strange that a group of countries who wished to destroy Israel, forced so many of their fellow citizens to go to that same country isn't it?

It's also strange that Israel puts black African migrants who flee to Israel for a better life there on Israeli military and civilian jets and flys them back to the country they came from in Africa. Imagine the screaming the Western media if Europeans sent their migrants back to Africa or the USA rouned up tens of millions of Mexican illegals and transported them across their southern border back to Mexico.

Stranger yet is the fact the the vast majority of American Jews voted for the most anti Israeli President since the founding of Israel in 1948. Barack Hussein Obama. A President who has personally insulted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyaho several times and until recently openly favored Muslims nations like Egypt.

It seems Israeli Jews know more about President Obama and loath him while liberal American Jews chose a Islamophile Marxist like Obama over Romney who PM Netanyaho wisely chose as the hopeful winner.

Putin and Russia have their own problems with Islam to face in the near future. After the collapse of the USSR in late 1991 millions of Muslims have emigrated from the old majority Muslim Soviet Republics which became independent countries in the east and flocked to European Russia. I understand Moscow is now about 20% Muslim. This is a SERIOUS problem facing Russia. Perhaps it's survival too as it has a low birth rate and high abortion statistics.

Putin was an arrogant rat toward the West during the last decade. Now he can face the problems of his beloved Russia dealing with Islam after his conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity. He'll need all the prayers he can get. Islam is no longer a majority in the remote border regions of Mother Russia but is becoming large minority population in European Christian Russia.

Unfortunately, I cannot possibly get into the minds of American Jews, so I can't help you with your observations or comment on that.

Perhaps this demonstrates that, in contrast to the conspiracy theories here, then is actually no plan of world wide Jewry to take over the world.

As for the bit about Africans, well, it is you who seem to view the world with ethnocentric spectacles on; there is a phrase about a pot calling the kettle black.... which seems an apt response. Although I am not sure where you are getting this information from, but doubtless there is more to it than you make out.

Arden Forester's comment appears to me to capture the essence of the problem. One cannot take the existence of either an Israeli state or of an arab state for granted. It was from the start a bungled affair. We also have to look at Zionism,and consider that terror is necessary to it, and how the Israeli state deploys this terror. And we also cannot neglect the reactive action of arabs to that.

.Israel expels 120 South Sudanese as part of campaign to reduce number of illegal immigrants

By The Associated Press | Associated Press – Sun, Jun 17, 2012.

JERUSALEM - Israel was forcing 120 South Sudanese to leave the country on Sunday, starting what was to be a mass deportation of thousands of unauthorized African migrants who have poured into the Jewish state.

Some 60,000 impoverished Africans, most from Eritrea and Sudan, have slipped into Israel across its southern border with Egypt since 2005, fleeing repressive regimes and seeking work. The influx has caused friction with Israeli locals and several incidents recently turned violent. Authorities, alarmed by the swelling numbers, say the migrants are a burden on the economy and threaten to undermine Israel's Jewish character.

Facing a public uproar, the government launched a campaign last week to round up and expel migrants from South Sudan and other countries that have friendly relations with Israel, and therefore would be expected to treat returning citizens well. In all, it hopes to expel 4,500 Africans.

In addition, other Africans continue to flood into Israel. Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said that while Israeli authorities rounded up about 300 people over the past week, some 260 more Africans entered Israel illegally.

Haddad said the people leaving Sunday had agreed to go after being threatened with arrest. In all, more than 500 agreed to leave within the past week, and another flight is scheduled for next week, she said. Adults who sign the voluntary departure form will receive 1,000 euros ($1,300) apiece to help them resettle, and minors will be given 500 euros ($650) each, she said.

The wave of migration has set off a heated debate in Israel. Some think Israel, founded as a refuge for survivors of the Holocaust, has a special responsibility to help those in need. Others say Israel has no special responsibilities because the world looked on while the Nazis slaughtered Jews.

Many of the migrants have concentrated in impoverished neighbourhoods, and their growing presence has created mounting tensions with locals who accuse them of rapes and other crimes. In an alarming recent development, several migrants and African homes and businesses have been attacked.

I happen to agree and support Israel's right to deport these illegals. All I ask is that Western nations, including my own, have the right to do the same to the tens of millions from the 3rd world who are invading our nations illegally. When we do the same, in most cases our immigrations laws allow us to do this, we are called haters and racists.

Hrmmmm. Since when did the UN acquire authority to allocate sovereignty over the West Bank and Jerusalem? Israeli independence was tied to the resolution of a UN mandate. There is no longer a UN mandate in Palestine. The UN has no more authority to declare a sovereign Palestinian state than it does to declare Texas the property of Mexico. Those familiar with US history will remember that the US acquired Texas in a war with Mexico - a war the express purpose of which was to gather territory for slave state expansion. That is certainly worse than anything the Israelis are supposed to have done.

Oh, wait. Someone might blurt out "International Law!" or some such bovine scatology. If we are so concerned with "International Law," then let's start with Tibet, shall we? Let's pass a resolution declaring Tibet an independent nation. Of course, that would anger the Chinese - greatly. And the Chinese are both important, and powerful. Besides, who would enforce it? Nations are afraid to let Taiwan declare its independence for fear of Chinese reaction. No, I think we can put paid to "International Law."

So what then is the UN authority? Besides the wet dreams of a bunch of do-good kibitzing wannabe commissars who live far away from the rockets, and think their ideas of 'peace and justice' have some relevance to the situation on the ground, I mean. People without the ability or the will to project power, but with plenty of arrogant ideas about what other people should risk for the sake of "peace." The Israelis don't need their advice.

What happens if the UN declares a Palestinian state? Nothing. The Israelis won't recognize it, and no one will enforce it. The Palestinians are not going to be given the rights of sovereignty. The UN can pound its shoe on the table all it likes. It won't make any difference. The Palestinians are not going to be given control of the border. They aren't going to be allowed to raise an army. They aren't going to be given the right to make treaties.

And if the UN doesn't like it, then the UN can send its army into the Middle east to enforce it's proclamations. Oh, wait. The UN doesn't have an army, does it. Maybe the UN shouldn't even have a voice. Most of the countries that inhabit its halls don't deserve a voice in any case. This vote is good evidence that the UN should itself be abolished. It seems very good at sending peacekeepers to employ child prostitutes. But anything useful? Nahhhh.

A point of Order, YG. The "1967 Borders" were never recognised as such. They were, in fact the ceasefire line imposed in 1949 following the invasion by the British led Jordanian Army and Egypt of the borders of Israel recognised in the Security Council in 1947. I commend to your readers this presentation of the facts of this situation vis a vis "International Law."

http://www.torahcafe.com/jewishvideo.php?vid=33fb484b5

It is long, but well worth the watching because it is factual and draws on historic documents, treaties and UN resolutions.

"And if the UN doesn't like it, then the UN can send its army into the Middle east to enforce it's proclamations. Oh, wait. The UN doesn't have an army, does it"

No, but the EU does, or will have very soon if TB gets his ambitious way.

I have read through all of the comments above and find it incredible that no-one has mentioned the international legitimacy of Israel's existence, per League of Nations-backed San Remo declarations of 1920 & 22.Not has anyone mentioned the litle family squable between Jacob & Esau and the resultant visceral hatred of Jews by arabs that is still going on after four thousand years, making the promlem insolluble in human terms.

Bred - Sorry for the delay. I was considering your post which I had found confusing. Rather than ask for further clarification let me see if I've figured out what you mean and then ask one more follow up if I do.

You refer mainly to the banking system/finance system. At first I didn't see the connection. I fully agree that the current system needs massive reform and transformation. I wasn't quite sure what it had to do with the Israel/Palestine question. I confess I haven't watched the piece you recommended. I just haven't the time right now. However, I think I know where you're going now.

You're thinking of the Rothschilds et al - the Jewish connection to some of the most powerful finance centres/financiers in the world. Following that logic, those individuals and groups hold a lot of influence over 'Kings and Princes' - governments and politics. Therefore, what you're saying is that while the Jewish influence remains in finance at the highest level, governments will continue to try to appease those Jews at the highest level and so will be 'friends of Israel'. If that's what you're saying then I have a follow up question (if not then please advise me).

For the sake of argument (since I know there will be many who wish to argue those points), assuming all of that to be true, what I still don't follow is your "therefore". Here's why, what that particular point amounts to is this - Israel is in unmovable because foreign powers support it at the behest of Jewish financiers. Ultimately though, that irrelevant to the basic question I asked. You see the question I asked was, if Cranmer is wrong, the what is the biggest threat or danger in the Israel/Palestine situation specifically. I'm not concerned with Israel and Europe or Israel and America or Israel and the world. I'm concerned with the 'Palestine issue'. That being the case, the point about Jewish finance and foreign support only actually says that the Jewish presence is supported and their position is backed up. What it doesn't do is answer the question of - what is the Jewish position in Palestine, or more directly in line with my question - what is the problem or danger of the Israeli position in this Palestine question.

Do you follow?

If Israel has support it is strong. If Israel loses support it is weaker. That's fine. I understand. My question though is, weak or strong, what are the biggest concerns people (who disagree with Cranmer's post) have in this issue?

Or is it that you're concerned only with a 'larger' Jewish issue and not really with this issue of Israel and Palestine in conflict?

If that's the case then okay, but it really has nothing to do with my question.

At this point my understanding is that you're not specifically concerned with the 'Palestinian conflict' itself. You believe the wider issue is more important and that wider issue is that Jewish money is not only defending Israel but more importantly, Jewish money is the source of warfare from which the financiers.

A summary of your position might be, "If one cares about peace and the end of war, then one must care about the end the current financial system which has Jewish people at the top of it."

Hearty greetings to you, Your Grace, and to all your good and loyal communicants. Excellent arguments you make again Your Grace. Israel could use an MK of your cerebral calibre and stiff spine. Especially the spine, as I'm certain your uncompromising Jew-loving views have cost you many a life's opportunity. Not to mention being left out of a few invitation lists to posh to-dos in high-ceilinged halls with boards of yummy victuals and rivers of Rioja. I'd vote for you should you try out as an Israeli PM, as I imagine you'd stick through the thick and the thin and see a job to the end come what may. But that dog collar and purple shirt I presume you sport would have to go. Ditto for the big beard; you'll get little traction with most Israelis, looking as you do like a pissed-off Belzer Hassid... no offense to you or the Belzer Hassidim, of course.

And engrossing comments by the communicants as always. Lots of wisdom, kind words of support, much brilliance, new angles and of course, the usual sprinkles of nastiness and sheer idiocy. There's a bell curve in this somewhere. Btw, YG, I don't think that I ever confessed that I tend to read the comments first...from the bottom up, and your article last. Haven't the foggiest why I do that to my head.

Being jet-lagged, wide-awake but exhausted and having poured myself a generous tumbler of ice-cold, Canadian rotgut Crown Royal the moment my little clan...tired of the novelty of having me back... filed into bed, I've a chance to bloviate, but will try to be brief. Or, probably not.

Well, Your Grace, the predictable vote is a disappointment to me, of course, but not the disaster you appear to think it is. I might expound on that with some of the usual suspects here in the days to come, time permitting. With the bumbling Obamamessiah in the WH and the Clinton woman making an ass of herself and her country everywhere she turns up in the world, it's not a big surprise that so few nations stood with Israel...although having the US, Canada and my first homeland, the ever-brave Czech Republic on our side makes up for everyone else. But it stung losing the rest of Europe, I must admit. No matter how hard I try to re-set my attitude, sooner or later something comes up to remind me that it's still the same Europe that wanted us to go away and tried really hard to make us do so in so many different and creative ways. It now follows us to another continent and wants us to follow along the next steps in the exquistly planned, cleverly phased and graduated deligitimization and dismemberment of our nation state and our peoplehood. Hopefully this reality will penetrate the thick fog of illusions of at least some of my deluded, Euro-enamoured brothers back in Israel...but hope's cheap, as we all should know by now. I wish they had the sense, the khokhma you and many of your communicants have, Your Grace. If wishes were like fishes. Fishes! Gulp....brrr-yuck...there's got to be a recent jar of pickled herring in one of the fridges to chase-down this rotgut with...good night, YG.

Remember what caused those terrible events of August 1914? It wasn't only the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo and how that that snowballed out of control into a world war within a few weeks.

Europe's militarists, it's kings, one tsar, presidents, and a PM as well as it's armaments manufacturers and others who had a chance to make fortunes lusted after that war. Europe hadn't had a major war in almost 100 years since Napoleon. The events at Sarajevo was their ticket to a war they all wanted.

After WW I ended in 1918 our world was changed forever. It layed the groundwork for WW II.

Have you seen the 2005 French movie "Joyeux Noel" about the actual and well documented spontaneous 1914 Christmas Eve truce at various places on the Western front in France by troops from all sides? On Christmas Eve 1914 German soldiers placed small Christmas trees with candles lit above their side of the trenches. They started singing "Silent Night" which could be heard for miles in the silence. British and French troops, atcually they were mere boys from farms, villages, and cities from all over Europe, joined in the singing of more Christmas Carols they all knew. They then left the trenches, leaving their rifles behind, and shake hands with their "enemies". In some places chaplains held services or celebrated Mass in no man's land with all sides attending. The officers were furious. These men who were shooting at each other a few hours before showed each other pictures of their families and shared food they received in Christmas packages from home. The next morning they celebrated Christmas day and played football... Then they went back to their trenches.

The next world war is with Islam and we have already surrendered before it's begun. Your country, mine, and the whole Western world.

We are flat on our backs like a helpless beetle who can't get back on it's legs because of political correctness.

Mohammed's children will crush our Western beetle.

Islam is Nazism hiding behind an evil cult which our delusional and spineless leaders imagine is a real religion worthy of respect.

To add to our downfall a total moron happens the be President of the USA today. Obama ordered the US State Department a few years ago to no longer call acts of terrorism by Muslims terrorist acts. They are now called "man made disasters". How insane is that?

I've got a long list of other totally crazy examples of how PCness is going to destroy us but you can probably guess what most of them are.

Defending ourselves from Islamic Jihad is a just war. Our ancestors who had to save Europe time after time from being conquered by Islam knew this and they did something about it because they had common sense.

John. What is not generally known outside the UK is the number of Islamic atrocities being planned for this country right under our noses. One would say there are probably at least half a dozen at any one time. The public only find out at the trial stage. Birmingham is a particular hotspot for this kind of activity. It has to happen as it did in London in 2005. It just so happens this man was travelling the tube on the preceding Saturday, having visited HMS Belfast.

Anyway, the point is, don’t be surprised when the next plot succeeds. And don’t be surprised at a complete sea change in PC attitudes resulting.

One believes the more advanced a particular race, the more human life is held precious. When one considers the attitude of the muslims towards human life, including their own, one has to come to the conclusion that the adherents to that way of life are invariably members of lesser races...

You (or Huston Smith) would be wrong then. It's the number of days between Christmas and Epiphany (the moment where Christ is revealed as the Son of God). These were both big holidays at a time when the New Year wasn't celebrated (it tended to be done by the regnal year of the monarch) - so effectively, it's counting down the days of work in the middle of the winter before another feast day.

You’re a knowledgeable fellow with an academic bent. A question for you if the Inspector may.

Gloucestershire is very rich in Roman remains. You have to dig down at least a couple of feet now to find mosaic floors and the like. Why the past sinks down into the ground and is buried over with soil is a bit of a mystery to this man, and he would like to bone up on the process. Is there a name for said activity over time ?

Haven't the foggiest if there's a name for it (and there probably is), but the past doesn't so much sink down as the present layers over the top of it. Gloucester's Roman remains, if I remember correctly, were abandonned for a period of time and left in a state of ruin yes? It only takes a few decades of natural deposits of soil and dust (from wind, rain flow etc.) to form quite dense layers. Where buildings are left as ruins, they eventually collapse, which also tends to flatten their presence in the soil.

You do obviously get subsidence in places where the soil is comprised of alluvial deposits (i.e. silt from rivers/glaciers), marshes, or where water is introduced (either above ground or beneath it), but that tends to be in particular locations. Oh, and earthquakes of course. They can cause things to sink.

A good primarily non-natural example would be Edinburgh, where the town has been built up over the centuries, so that older remains now appear to be below the ground. It very often happens in a marked way where there are limits on how far one can develop horizontally (in Edinburgh's case, the lay of the land), so that each generation is obliged to build increasingly vertically, and upon the buildings that they inherited.

Belfast, we are talking of country fields now, and not just a covering of dust. Two feet of soil over two millennia. And no, the mosaics aren’t cracked that much.

Gloucester city is a good example of how the streets are now many feet above what the legions would have have walked on. But as you say, this is due to building debris being stamped into the ground and forming a base for the next building.

As for a name for the process, one has never discovered it. Rather possible there isn’t one. So academic, here’s the challenge. Using ancient Greek or Latin, a word to describe “sinking into the earth”, if you can manage that...

Well, "pedo" is earth in Greek (which, by the way, is why the Americanism of "pedophile" is so ridiculous), I know that much - soil experts are pedologists.

My Google-fu tells me that "kaluptó" is the verb to cover. Which doesn't make for a very catchy word to an English-speaker: "pedokalupto".

Humotegere would be cover up (with) soil in Latin. Not much better really.

I've racked my Geography Dictionary but can't find anything that fits. I studied soil formation yonks ago - so I know some of the terminology associated with aspects of the process, but was never introduced to it with an umbrella term beyond "soil accumulation". Hmmm. Odd. Most of these things tend to have some peculiar piece of jargon.

"One believes the more advanced a particular race, the more human life is held precious"

I agree. We have to wonder how "advanced" our liberal and left wing fellow citizens are who support all forms of abortion including partial birth abortion. They are always telling the world how "progressive" their agenda's are.

They've "progressed" to the point of inflicting infanticide on the the most innocent among us. Tens of millions of unborn babies.

Next on their progressive march to their version of "utopia" (hell on earth to the rest of us) will be euthanasia.

Good question, that Inspector. I don't think there is a specific term everyone uses, although I've come across subsidence of artifacts as the closest and terms which describe the processes involved, such as post-depositionalaccretion, and individual causes such as bioturbation, the action of animals such as worms which disturb the soil and cause artifacts to sink. For the British content, the Stonehenge monoliths have sunk primarily due to bioturbation by earthworm and burrowing critter action.

Looking at some of my old books I neglected during my beer-soaked days at the old U, the primary causes are vegetation decay which creates soil, collapse and decay of man-made structures, accummulation of wind-borne dust, silt from flooding and people building on top of older collapsed structures...probably because people are by nature lazy buggers. Then, we have the fact that solid objects are "pulled" by gravity and when situated over loose soil, which is analogous to a very viscuous liquid, will sink at a faster rate than the surrounding material due to density differences.

Good man Avi, you confirm the Inspector’s suspicion that there is no word to describe the apparent wish of ancient matter to disappear into the earth. On the subject of earth worms, one has seen how they have covered disused railway track in Gloucester in less then thirty years. Powerful creatures those worms when their actions are considered over time, what !

Speaking of the "apparent wish of ancient matter to disappear into the earth," Inspector, I personally experienced this powerful phenomenon this very afternoon at the synagogue luncheon when I confused the mom of my daughter's playmate with the grandmother. Two shots of whisky in rapid succession can somewhat aleviate this uncomfortable condition.

I believe Iran is pushing for nukes to pull an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse)attack on the USA. I am sure you know what that is all about. If not, better minds than mine here can go into more detail than I am qualified to post. Even so, here is my feeble attempt to discribe in brief an EMP attack and what it would mean and how simple it can be accomplished with not one single building being destroyed. A nuke on a missile is launced by Iran on a missile from a ship at sea in the Atlantic Ocean 200 miles off the east coast of the USA and is exploded within minutes 50 to 100 miles above the middle of the USA. Let's say over Iowa. This nuclear explosion in the atmosphere causes an electro magnetic pulse that moves at a fantastic rate of speed in all directions for up to 2,000 miles and will destroy all electrical systems, computers, and even bateries within 5 or 10 minutes. Iran's obsession to destroy the "Great Satan" the USA is even more important than their desire to "wipe Israel of the map". The USA represents the only country capable of stopping it's plans for it's mullah's dreams of a modern caliphate. Such an event like an EMP attack would be catastrophic and would be something the USA or any other country it happens to might never recover from. Suddenly all cars, trucks, trains would stop. Planes would fall from the sky. All electricity including genertaors would instantly cease to work. Gas pumps would not operate, bank machines useless, water would stop being pumped, etc, ect etc. It would take years to restore the country to even a partial resemblence of what it was before an EMP attack. This could be why Iran is sending it's naval ships to the Atlantic Ocean off the east cost of the USA and why they are also cozy with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela hoping to use that country as a possible base for such an attack. Chavez already allows Iranian ships to use his ports and Irans subs will be showing up there soon.It would take only one Hiroshima type nuke to accomplish this evil attack. It would result in tens of millions dying within a few weeks from starvation, massive urban violence, lack of water, and eventualy disease. The long term affect would be the USA would be totally out of the picture as a super power even though it's subs and military over seas who would still function but be on their own not being able to communicate for days or months with what ever leadership still existed.

With the USA totally helpless China or even Russia could take advange of it's collapse and easily invade and take over the US with little or no resistance.

Another scenerio would be NATO occupying the USA much as the Americans occupied part of Germany after WW II and help the USA get back on it's feet but only IF they didn't get the same treatment from Iran.

Inciently such an EMP attack on the USA would take out most of Canada and all of northern Mexico too.

...forgot you're from Gloucester, Inspector. Fine, rich Holocene silt to cover everything including your old tracks, there. My city's connection to Gloucester is with its first subway cars, which we bought in 1950, with the last one retiring in 1990. I miss the comfortable, thickly padded benches and seats and the glossy red or dark green colour. A good read if you're into this sort of thing:

Could be - but I'm suspicious: there's two villages with the name, which suggests an original older settlement (probably prior to when "slaughter" was being used to mean killing - OED attests it to about the 14th Century), which is probably derived from an Anglo-Saxon name.

You did get villages - particularly surrounding big cities like London - where the slaughtering of animals was the main activity, owing to the fact that it was often heavily taxed or even banned within the city walls for reasons of health. But Upper and Lower Slaughter seem to be too far from any big settlement to justify having such a specialized industry. Certainly they would have been slaughtering animals, but it's very improbable that they would have been slaughtering animals from the surrounding area or in numbers to justify having a dedicated slaughterhouse.

Very slim chance it could be the name of the feudal manor family - but I'd imagine that they'd have chucked anything so plebeian as "Lord Slaughtre" pretty quickly.

AIB, who is now LAIB, congratulations are due on your apparent elevation to the ranks of the nobility. I've been away and might have missed the embossed invitation burried amidst the chaff of humdrum bills and stern threats to initiate collection proceedings. What did you do, or perhaps not do, to earn such an honour?

I thought that ,but having looked it up from the tourist information online:

"The name of the village[s] ...stems from the Old English name for a wet land 'slough' or 'slothre' (Old English for muddy place) upon which it lies. This quaint village sits beside the little Eye stream and is known for its unspoilt limestone cottages in the traditional Cotswold style."

John. One remembers EMP from the cold war days. The Soviets relied heavily on technologically light equipment, and even old fashioned hand crank field telephones, while NATO had up-to-date kit packed with chips, absolutely useless when not if nuclear commenced.

Avi. The Gloucester Railway Carriage and Wagon Works was situated in the docks area here. They developed the ‘Gloucester Bogie’ which is still around today, and in use worldwide. Sadly, the firm isn’t, a victim of the 1960s dash for the private motorcar. All traces of the works have been obliterated. During WWII, they made tanks !

Hannah. The Slaughters are delightful villages. Used for 19th century scenes for films, etc.

Incidentally the ‘wold’ in Cotswold is a name for forest. It was the Anglo Saxons who cleared it when they ‘arrived’.

That's regrettable, Inspector, one less competitor, which helps explain how our provincial government gave away the contract, without a due bidding process, for our new subway cars to Bombardier, headquartered in our unhappy, ever-separating and greedy French province of Quebec.

Miss Hannah, figures that you young'uns would access this new Internet thingie to find the right answer, while we old warriors leaf through old tomes and throw wild guesses.

Exposing your New World thinking there - a Peer of the Realm doesn't do anything if they can help it - one simply is or isn't.

(Nah, the Inspector challenged me to change my user picture, and wasn't happy with my EU Community Inquisitor one so I whipped up a costume, and forgot to change it back. I'll go back to plebdom, as it's where I came from, and where I'm happiest :D )

Many years ago on a visit to England and the Cotswolds we stayed at a nice hotel in Moreton in Marsh named "Redesdale Arms". I seem to recall those two villages named Upper and Lower Slaughter weren't far a way. Also a pretty place called Broadway. Thirty years dims the mind.

If you are familiar with the famous Mitford family who once lived near Moreton in Marsh during WW I and into the early 1920'a? If so you must know about their 6 eccentric daughters who's political views went from the extreme left with Communist Jessica who went to live in the USA all the way to the Nazi Unity who once imagined she would become Mrs. Hitler. Nancy Mitford became a famous writer.

LAIB, and here I thought that given UK's political shifts, peerage and titles of nobility are granted to the heroes of the socialist Labour party.

Ah, Miss Hannah, as a good and loyal niece perhaps you need to scatter among the bookshelves emergency caches of brandy, good Cubans (of the cigar kind, of course) and cold beef with mustard for His Lordship? I've not seen him about recently. Could he still be in the mazes of the bibliotheca Lavendonina?

Not much of a point worrying the Inspector with such stuff when he and little England can do bugger all about it. Well, maybe the Inspector and His Grace can write a really good letter to Brussels.

Better try and see if you can get through the dense craniums of the angry Paulbots at home, I'd suggest. They've been lately salivating over Rand Paul running in 2016. They won't get it that Iran's been playing all the simple-minded Joo-hating left and right-wing isolationist dolts in the US, not to mention the socialist wingnuts of the EU like cheap fiddles by pretending to be aiming only at Israel with its nuclear program. Clever those mullahs, aren't they? Why threaten and upset everyone when you can dangle fantasies of toasted Jews. And the Paulbots are lapping it all up, the morons, blaming "the ZOG" for upsetting the noble Aryan Persians and sapping America's bullion and white manhood. Check out the Paulbot comments all over the blogosphere; it's as if someone managed to breed a peacenik hippie flake with Henry Ford at his wildest.

Well, when their admired Persians fry Big Satan's fancy gewgaws with an EM pulse missile from that freighter with pistacchios on its manifest, I guess we'll be alright, because the Paulbots will put on their coon hats, form their militias and defend all our wimin and chillum with their flintlocks and Bowie knives.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)